February 19, 2019

February 21, 2019

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It may be that the Constitution is made of stronger material than Trump realizes. He may be running headlong into a claim of “emergency powers,” but he might not make it through the checks and balances and other safeguards that this document provides.

Even the conservatives may be reluctant to concede power in the Congress and, especially, the Supreme Court where they don’t need to worry about facing reelection. John Roberts is famously protective of judicial integrity (and already rebuked Trump when Trump referred to “Obama judges” or “Trump judges”), and Clarence Thomas has written opinions against the lack of limiting definitions in the Emergency Powers Act that become unconstitutionally vague if they give the president too much power to legislate rather than using agencies to define enabling rules within narrow terms.

The idea that the president could use a power DELEGATED by Congress to do an end run around something Congress explicitly prohibited is clearly an assumption of legislative power that is unconstitutional.

And even if conservatives don’t care about Trump’s abuses, they may hesitate to establish a precedent that a future PROgressive president in 2021 could invoke to deal with a REAL emergency such as climate change, the epidemic of gun violence or the health care emergency.

If a Democratic president declared an emergency over such a pretext, and was attempting to seize power as Trump is doing, the Republicans would be screaming bloody murder. They’d be right to do so, too.

Are Trumpublicans not speaking up because they have no worries? Are they not thinking about the next election?

Are they just gutless cowards? Or are they thinking that free and fair elections are a thing of the past?

Gerrymandering did not prevent the 2018 mid-term election from being a disaster for the Republicans. Voter suppression did not prevent the 2018 mid-term election from being a disaster for the Republicans.

How far is the Republican Party prepared to go?

How far is Trump prepared to go to protect his associates, his family, and himself?

The Founding Fathers imagined and depended on a knowledgeable and educated population to elect self-governing representatives to serve and protect the rights and liberties of the individual. However, when the population chooses to be willfully ignorant, happily willing to give up personal autonomy, and favor imaginary “security” over personal liberty, Donald Trump is as predictable as sunrise. We are seeing the birth of the American Police State which will likely not differ much from Orwell’s Oceania.

The more the talk show hosts ridicule Trump’s “national emergency” (SO much of an emergency that he admitted “I didn’t have to do this”, and then spent the next two days playing golf), the more likely it is that at least some Republican members of Congress will start to fear for their reputations. (Li’l Linsey has trashed hers, and of course Mitch never had a rep to begin with.) And I’m hoping that some JUDGES can be the adults in the room…..

I would have trusted the Supreme Court to reject a power grab by the president, until he stacked it with right wingers. Now, they could actually allow this, and if they do, we have a supreme commander, whose decisions are the final word. That would be a very very bad problem even if it wasn’t for the fact that the guy he nutty as a fruit cake.